Thread: Could be bad news

My good mates response was so good i had to share:
(He got it in before 5pm too)

Dear Wendy Thompson,

I have read the proposal in detail and understand that an unformed legal section of Opawe Rd is proposed to be stopped and ownership transferred to the adjacent landowner, and that a nearby pedestrian-only easement be established as a foot-traffic route.

I emphatically object to the proposal on the grounds that:

1. A ULR provides much stronger legal protection of public rights of access to public property. Swapping a ULR for an easement is a very poor deal for the public.

2. It’s claimed that "The unformed road is not used as a vehicular road by the general public, but it is used for pedestrian access to the Ruahine Forest Park by hunters and walkers.”, which one can only assume is because the ULR is made inaccessed to vehicles by the adjoining property owner’s fencing and farming operations. The ULR could be developed in future to provide vehicular access.

3. A reason given for stopping the road is that "The unformed road is also occupied by the owner immediately adjoining the unformed road.” I would like to know when occupation has ever been a good reason to take property from the public and ut it into private ownership of the occupier. This is not how this country’s democracy works. Our public institutions do not exist to steal public property.

4. It is not stated why the proposal is being made; what the problems are for the public at present, and how it would benefit the public.

Overall this proposal is clearly not in the interest of the public. That it would be proposed at all strikes me as a gross miscarriage of the protection of public property.

I would appreciate your response to the above points and would suggest that a potential solution is to simply move the ULR to make it more accessible to the public and perhaps further away from the adjacent landowner’s dwelling, if those are issues.

Sincerely,
Member of the Public

I rang the district council this afternoon, to speak with Wendy.

The operator replied " Oh no, shes not been in her office, she's been in meetings all day over THAT road"

Certainly hope that indicates its no shoe-in

I've only just stumbled across this discussion, clearly too late to make a submission. I wasn't even aware the place existed and I lived in Ashhurst for 6 years.. some hunter I am!
I must go there and have a look on my next free weekend.

Update: The road stopping of Opawe road has failed

Guess they'll try again in another 10 years, thinking we may have forgotten.

We won't.

Dont you just love that concluding comment from DOC. Usual gutless protection of rights of people to enjoy our forest estate. What a joy to see the Court unreservedly slap DOC down to try and sell some of the DOC estate by way of a swap for the nonsensical dam up the Makaroa river. A DOC worker spoke to a mate who is a farmer recently and complained many people including womem and children no longer support DOC in its activities. When ignorance is all pervasive.

Anyone got a link to the news that it's not getting stopped? I can't find anything

Confirming XR500's update, here's the council's updated plan. Basically, they're going to stop that proposal and look into a slightly moved access that keeps the same enduring access permissions (for vehicles, dogs, firearms etc). I expect there'll be another proposal to submit on for the new plan - but hopefully it's a good one that's still a paper road.

Only 61 objections! Good on you folks who brought attention on the forum and cared enough to make submissions. With numbers like that you can see you can get listened to, it's worth getting involved with this stuff. You don't have to put heaps of time in, even just emailing the right person and saying 'this is a terrible/great idea' is something.
Council report and appendices.pdf

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/300...to-remain-open

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Originally Posted by Reindeer

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/300...to-remain-open

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Criminal waste of tax payers precious funds. 157 grand for lawyers FFS!!!

That's twice now the council has wasted funds, when it doesn't take a rocket scientist to tell them a road is a road is a road.